Week 7 football rewind

After seven weeks of football, all nine MCAL teams — including San Rafael — remain in contention for a playoff berth.
The top eight MCAL teams — Marin Catholic, Tam, Novato, San Marin, Justin-Siena, Drake, Redwood and Terra Linda — all have already done so or can still get to five wins, the minimum for an NCS berth.
But San Rafael, which this year has moved to Division IV for football, has only one game against a D IV team — Justin-Siena. Should the Bulldogs beat the Braves on Friday, they would finish 1-0 against Division IV teams — making them playoff eligible.
In case you think this is preposterous, consider that Upper Lake went to the Division V playoffs last season with a 1-9 regular-season record.

For a few more thoughts, read on . . .WITH the halfway point of the season in the rear-view mirror, Marin Catholic has established itself as the clear No. 1 team among the MCAL ranks.
But from what Novato has shown recently, the Hornets are strong contenders for the No. 2 spot in any league power rankings.
The Hornets, after losing 41-6 to Marin Catholic in Week 4 of the season, have rebounded with three consecutive victories. In those games – Novato beat Eureka 28-7, downed Redwood 48-0 and defeated Drake 52-21 – the Hornets are averaging 394 yards total offense while allowing 148 yards.
Using the transitive property law that I learned in math classes years ago, here is the case for Novato:
The Hornets routed Redwood, which took Tam to overtime before losing. That same Tam team beat San Marin in overtime, meaning the three teams are roughly equals. San Marin also beat Terra Linda, which also beat Justin-Siena.
In the eyes of several Novato players and coach Travis Brackett, the recent success is the result of the kind of play the team expected from itself when the season started.
“We’re gelling, we’re getting better,” Brackett said. “We’re healthy – we’re hoping to get Sammy (Kraft) back next week, then we’ll be fully healthy. But the goal is to get better each week. And we’re doing that.”
“I feel like in the past, when we lost, we were the reason we lost,” Novato running back Herve Changeux said. “The team’s that we played weren’t really a lot better than us, but we kind of just took ourselves out. . . . I feel like now if we play 100 percent mistake free and give it all we’ve got, we can compete with the best of the best.”
Novato’s J.T. Peleki said the team has shown its character with its recent play.
“We just have more heart,” Novato’s J.T. Peleki said of his team’s surge. “That’s how I would describe it, more heart. You can’t teach heart. That’s what we told ourselves. We told our teammates, ‘If you don’t have heart, we don’t want to talk to you, you’re a heartless person. On our team, we teach about heart and that’s how we play.”
And while several players said they would welcome a rematch with Marin Catholic in the playoffs, Brackett said it is way to early to speculate about the postseason.
“We’ve got to play Terra Linda next week,” Brackett said. “So that’s our focus, that’s all we can focus on. We can only control what we control and that’s playing Terra Linda next week.”

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AT 7-0, Marin Catholic is one of nine North Coast Section teams – including three in Division III – with unblemished records this season. Yet the Wildcats, at least according to Calpreps.com, are not the No. 1 team among NCS Division III teams.
That honor belongs to Cardinal Newman (5-0-1), whose record includes a 10-10 tie with Palma (Salinas) – which is among the top teams in the Central Coast Section.
Cardinal Newman and Marin Catholic also have company in the unbeaten ranks in Division III, with Campolindo (7-0) and Miramonte (7-0) ranked third and fourth, respectively, by Calpreps.
The quartet will no doubt be doing some scoreboard watching the rest of the season, so here’s a helping hand as far as the remaining schedules for the four teams before the postseason begins.No. 1 Cardinal Newman – Friday vs. Montgomery (2-5); Nov. 28 vs. Rancho Cotate (4-2); Nov. 5 at Piner (0-6); Nov. 10 at Santa Rosa (2-4).No. 2 Marin Catholic – Saturday at Tam (5-2); Oct. 29 vs. Justin-Siena (4-2), Nov. 12 at Redwood (3-3).No. 3 Campolindo – Friday vs. Miramonte (7-0); Oct. 28 at Alhambra (2-5); 11/4 at Las Lomas (5-1).No. 4 Miramonte – Friday at Campolindo (7-0); Nov. 4 at Dublin (4-2); Nov. 10 at Alhambra (2-5).
For his part, Marin Catholic coach Mazi Moayed said it is still too early for him or his assistants to be looking past the MCAL season.
“There’s a lot of football left, there’s a month of football left,” Moayed said. “That’s a lot. So we’ve got some getting healthy to do and some getting better to do before we get there or the rest is futile.
“We have a bye week in Week 9. That’s when we’ll sort of look at things. But it’s impossible to look at who’s going to land where right now. We still have three formidible teams to play. And it’s high school football; anyone can win on any given day. So Tam’s plenty capable, Justin is well coached and Redwood is always a big emotional rivalry with us.”

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Before the season began, Terra Linda coach Tim Bosque said he believed his team was good enough to make the NCS playoffs. But the Trojans’ current 2-4 record makes making the playoffs something of an uphill climb.
Terra Linda – with games against Novato, Tam, Drake and San Rafael remaining – must win three times to become playoff eligible. And as Tam found out last season when it was omitted from the NCS playoff field, a 5-5 record is no guarantee of a postseason berth.
The Trojans had their chances against San Marin on Saturday, but ultimately fell 28-24. Four missed PATs, including two unsuccessful two-point attempts, played a role in the loss.
“It was a game we thought we should have won,” Bosque said Monday. “To San Marin’s credit, they hung in there and beat us. So that was frustrating. But we’ve got to put that behind us.”
Bosque said he didn’t view the San Marin game as a must-win affair, but he agreed that it was a big one.
“It certainly would have made our situation better,” the coach said. “It was a winnable game that when you look back at it, it’s a game we felt that we should have won. But there’s not much we can do about it at this point. We’ve got to put that behind us.
“We know what we’ve got to do. We kind of felt like to assure ourselves of the playoffs we had to win one of these – San Marin or Novato. Well, we didn’t get the San Marin win, so that leaves the Novato game with a little more importance.”

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Tam, coming off a tough loss at Justin-Siena in which the winning touchdown came with 4.3 seconds remaining, won’t have much time to lick any wounds it may have suffered. That’s because the Red-tailed Hawks now must face Marin Catholic this weekend.
“We’ve got to have a good week of practice next week,” Tam coach Jon Black said. “We’ve got Marin Catholic next week and they’re tough as everybody knows, so we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

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This week’s number: 20.7
That’s the number of seconds it took for Novato to move the ball 63 yards for a touchdown late in the first half against Drake on Saturday.
The Hornets took possession on their 37-yard line with 57.1 seconds following a Drake punt. Dustin Treick’s short pass to Alex Schlink resulted in a 48-yard catch and run. Nickey Federighi then caught a pass over the middle for a 15-yard TD on the next play.

2 Responses to Week 7 football rewind

One thing to know about Novato’s Redwood HS rout… Injuries, during the season and during the game, caused Redwood to run out of linemen. Two backs during the game had to don jerseys of injured linemen so the Giants could have five legally numbered players from tackle to tackle. Two big men return this week against Drake, so expect Calzaretta to post equally big numbers.

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